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Fla. reporter stopped at McCain event, asked to leave press pool

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A Florida newspaper reporter was stopped by security officials at a rally for Sen. John McCain on Friday and, even…

Posted on August 5, 2008

A Florida newspaper reporter was stopped by security officials at a rally for Sen. John McCain on Friday and, even after showing his credentials, was asked to leave the media pool.

"I explained that I was with the state press," reporter Stephen Price of the Tallahassee Democrat told his paper. "But the Secret Service man said that didn’t matter and that I would have to go."

McCain’s advance team member Jonathan Block responded that "access to the senator is tightly controlled," Price had been wrongly standing with the national press and "beyond a shadow of a doubt . . .race had nothing to do with it."

Sounding less convinced of that, Bob Gabordi, executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat, noted in the article that Price was the only black reporter there. No other reporter was singled out.

Another journalist, after asking why the agents were taking Price from the rally, was also escorted out, the newspaper said.

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